6 Integers

“Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it’s
made by one central idea, and the idea sets every
detail.”

—Architect Howard Roark from Ayn Rand’s novel The
Fountainhead.

6 Integers is music striving towards Roark’s modern
ideal. In the course of 4:56 a single, coherent process explores the
integers 1 through 6 by means of 5292 notes and four independent
channels of audio. It is the first full piece generated by the Xi Operator. Its “every
detail” (but the timber of the piano and marimba!) are
determined by a simple, “central” algorithm; neither
chance nor human intervention play any role in the work. The entire
piece, including its double binary structure, arises, essentially,
from modulo division and the integers 1 through 6.

6 Integers was premiered January 25th 2000 at the CCM Studio
Theater.

Two recordings of 6 Integers are available as variable
bitrate mp3 files: